Over the past five school years, seven Rialto Unified School District teachers have been reported to credentialing authorities for misconduct including sex crimes, substance abuse and taking extreme measures to not come into work.

Five years ago, this news organization asked local public school districts for five years of complaints against teachers, along with documents and information about the outcomes of the investigations. The request was in response to the Los Angeles Unified School District’s 2011 Miramonte Elementary School sex scandal. The resulting series of articles, titled Safe Schools, looked at teacher complaints in school districts across Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties.

In July, five years after the original set of California Public Records Act requests, this publication sent out a new wave of requests to local school districts, covering the 2012-13 through 2016-17 school years. This article is part of a new series of Safe Schools 2017 articles.

The articles are intended to allow parents, district employees, taxpayers and others see how local districts handle complaints and let those who complained during the five-year period see what happened as a result.

Colton police were called to the school in April 2012 to investigate multiple allegations by students. A search of his San Bernardino home turned up evidence that was consistent with the allegations, police said at the time. He was arrested July 26, 2012.

On May 9, 2013, Avila pleaded no contest to one count of unauthorized invasion of privacy and was sentenced to 130 days in jail and five years’ probation. He also was required to register as a sex offender while on probation and to complete a 52-week sex offender treatment program, according to Christopher Lee, spokesman for the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office.

The district then sent Avila a letter to notify him that it would be informing the teachers commission of the “circumstances surrounding your termination.” The commission’s website shows that his credentials had already been revoked “by operation of law,” days after his plea.

Teresa Do

On July 29, 2016, the district informed the commission that Morris Elementary School teacher Teresa Do had resigned after being accused of misconduct — specifically, immoral conduct and being convicted of a crime of moral turpitude — under the state education code.

The problem occurred before Do worked for the district: While an employee of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in February 2014, Do was caught having sex with an inmate she’d been having a relationship with.

She pleaded guilty in April 2016 to sexual activity with a confined consenting adult and conspiracy and agreed to serve 176 days in a work-release program.

“As a result of the misconduct set forth above, district administration has lost confidence in your moral judgment and ability to serve as a role model for students,” the district said in a draft copy of the misconduct charges.

According to the commission website, Do currently has a valid multiple subject teaching credential, although it was suspended from July through November 2017.

Anne P. Dunn

Eisenhower High teacher Anne P. Dunn tendered her resignation Sept. 11, 2013, nine months after school officials say she was found to have shown up late for work with alcohol and marijuana in her system.

That January, Dunn was sent a notice of unprofessional conduct that described how she had been 50 minutes late for school on Dec. 4, 2012, and when a district official called to find out where she was, she exhibited signs of being under the influence of alcohol. Tests given to Dunn after she arrived at school showed she had a blood alcohol content of 0.195 percent, the letter said; she also tested positive for marijuana.

The letter gave Dunn 45 days to “correct your deficiencies.” Documentation provided by the district doesn’t address what happened between then and August.

That’s when Dun was sent another letter that she had been placed on administrative leave and was “in no case” to return to Eisenhower “at any time of day or night.”

The district informed the commission in November that Dunn had resigned while facing charges from the district of unprofessional conduct.

Dunn did not have an active teaching credential as of Feb. 22, according to the commission’s website.

Joseph Labita

Milor Continuation High School teacher Joseph Labita retired June 30, 2017, while charges from the district were pending against him related to what the officials claimed was a misuse of sick time that defrauded the district out of $8,337.92 in pay over two years.

In December 2016, Labita had been informed by the district of its intention to immediately suspend him without pay and dismiss him, based on his alleged immoral conduct, dishonesty, “evident unfitness for service” and “persistent violation of or refusal to obey” laws governing schools.

Specifically, officials said Labita was using significantly more than the 10 sick days he was allotted each school year — including 36.14 sick days in the 2014-15 year and 26.5 in the 2015-16 school year.

When confronted about it, Labita told district employees that he had “off-work orders” from his doctor, according to documents released by the district. However, it turned out his doctor had issued only five of the 31 orders Labita had submitted during those two school years, the district said.

The district informed the credentialing commission about Labita’s retirement and the accusations against him on Aug. 4, 2017. His credentials were all valid as of Feb. 22, the commission website showed.

Heather Luthy

Rialto Middle School teacher Heather Luthy’s credentials were revoked in May 2016, a little over a year after she resigned as the district was preparing to fire her, according to the commission website and documentation from Rialto Unified.

On Feb. 3, 2014, Luthy had received a notice of unprofessional conduct for “excessive absenteeism, excessive tardiness, your failure to notify administration at your school site when you would be absent or tardy, failure to prepare lesson plans, unprofessional behavior, dishonesty, and insubordination.”

Between Dec. 19, 2013, and Nov. 2, 2014, Luthy was absent for all or part of 95 days, according to the district.

She was suspended without pay in November 2014 and resigned in January 2015. The district notified the commission in February 2015.

Kyle Mackenzie

Jehue Middle School teacher Kyle Patrick Mackenzie, who police said was spotted smoking heroin near campus, was dismissed Jan. 8, 2015, and had his teaching credentials revoked for misconduct that November.

He pleaded guilty in April 2015 to the DUI charge and the drug-possession charge was dropped, court records show. He was sentenced to spend three years on probation, pay a $1,888 fine and attend a nine-month DUI program.

Jack Poster

Rialto High band teacher Jack Poster, who resigned in 2013 after being accused of punching a student in the face, had his teaching credentials revoked for misconduct in January 2017, according to the commission website and documentation from Rialto Unified.

On Dec. 10, 2012, Poster kicked a pair of students out of his fourth-period History of Rock and Roll class for being disruptive. On the way out, one of the students made what the district calls a “profane comment.”

“Rather than calmly address or ignore S.B.’s comment, you hurriedly followed S.B. out of your classroom and loudly confronted S.B. by calling him a ‘disrespectful little (expletive)’ or words of similar import,” the district’s statement of charges against Poster says. “You then proceeded to come face to face with S.B., advancing to within inches of S.B.’s person. In response to your aggressive maneuvering, S.B. pushed you away from him. You then proceeded to punch S.B. in the face, initiating a fistfight between the two of you.”

Poster was suspended without pay and informed on Feb. 15, 2013, that the district intended to fire him. He resigned July 23, 2013, and an attorney representing the district informed the commission a month later.

Poster subsequently lost a lawsuit he brought against Rialto Unified in 2015.

A search of San Bernardino County Superior Court records shows no criminal charges were brought against Poster over the confrontation with the student. Lee, the DA’s spokesman, said no case was ever submitted to the office for review.

Tim Braby

And then there’s former Henry Elementary School third-grade teacher Tim Braby, whose case was not part of the district’s response to the request for information about complaints against teachers.

Although three groups of parents complained in September 2012 that Braby bullied and intimidated their children, none of the parents’ complaints made it into the district’s disciplinary files.

All of the parents asked for their children to be transferred to other classrooms, but only one request was approved, from a family that had made a recording of Braby after a previous request was denied.

“Not very intelligent, are ya? Are ya? Why don’t you grow up?” Braby says on the recording.

Even seemingly trivial matters lead to loud reprimands:

“How many times do I have to say to indent? Do you not get what ‘indent’ means … or not? What does ‘indent’ mean? It means move it in! Just like I did! Can you not see the pink line, that’s moved in? Yes or no? Can you see it? Then why can’t you copy it that way? What do you mean, you don’t know? Because you don’t pay attention! That’s why you can’t copy it. You people don’t pay attention. Right there on the board, in black and white, and you can’t copy it down. Is that indented like I told you to do? No, it is not.”

Under California law, it’s illegal to record someone in a private setting without their consent, but courts have ruled that classrooms are public spaces and there is no expectation of privacy — or not being recorded — in them.

Beau Yarbrough wrote his first newspaper article taking on an authority figure (his middle school principal) when he was in 7th grade. He’s been a professional journalist since 1992, working in Virginia, Egypt and California. In that time, he’s covered community news, features, politics, local government, education, the comic book industry and more. He’s covered the war in Bosnia, interviewed presidential candidates, written theatrical reviews, attended a seance, ridden in a blimp and interviewed both Batman and Wonder Woman (Adam West and Lynda Carter). He also cooks a mean pot of chili.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.